FRIDAY
The atmosphere in the lab the next morning was hushed and uneasy. It wasn’t that many people had known Gemma well – or that she was popular, far from it. Still, she was a scientist, one of their own, and it’s always shocking when someone dies so young. And everyone was aware too that the Cat 3 malaria lab had been closed pending inquiries.
Claudia arrived at work just after Katie. She looked stunned. She accepted Katie’s condolences and tried to settle down to work at her bench. Glancing at her from time to time, Katie could see that most of the time she was sitting with her head in her hands. Eventually she came over and told Katie that she needed to get away and clear her head. She was going to go out for a long walk and wouldn’t be back that day.
The unworthy thought occurred to Katie that this was an ideal opportunity to crack on with her next attempt to replicate Claudia’s work, and she didn’t like herself for thinking that.
But her own concentration wasn’t what it ought to be either. As she ploughed grimly on, she found herself brooding over the time that she had spent with the sick woman in her cottage. Had Gemma known she was dying? Whether she had or not, the things she said to Katie must have been among the last words she had spoken – perhaps they were the last words. Now that she was dead they seemed to have a significance that perhaps they didn’t actually have.
“Sangha fever.” That was what had been worrying Gemma. Katie was pretty sure that it was a haemorrhagic fever similar to Marburg virus or Ebola. She typed “Sangha fever” into Google and found, as she’d thought, that the first, and so far only, outbreak had taken place around two years ago in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Of the 268 people infected, 227 had died before the outbreak was controlled. Like Ebola it was highly contagious, spread through contact with bodily fluids, and no treatment or vaccine had yet been developed. And like Ebola, it had been named after a river near the point of origin.
Sangha fever wasn’t something Gemma could have worked on. Research on a disease as dangerous as this was only carried out under the stringent conditions of a high security Category 4 lab. Those would include multiple containment rooms, positive pressure personnel suits, and intensive training. There were fewer than a dozen or so Cat 4 labs in the UK. Porton Down was the best known. Katie would have remembered if Gemma’s CV listed a Cat 4 lab.
But had she perhaps been out there in the Congo at the time of the outbreak?
And then there was someone called Mary, whom Gemma had wanted to see.
Oh, this was no good. She really must get back to work.
“Caitlin? Caitlin?”
She looked round. There was a porter at the door of the lab. He said, “There’s someone at reception asking to see you.”
Katie was puzzled and a little wary. Who could this be?
The porter went on, “She says her name is Mary Bellinger and that she’s Professor Braithwaite’s sister.”
So this was who Gemma had wanted to see!
“Tell her I’ll come right away.”
Mary was waiting for her. Katie saw a resemblance, but there was a gentleness in her face and something tentative in her manner that was very different from Gemma’s forthrightness, not to say rudeness.
“I’m so sorry,” Katie said, as they shook hands. “This is such a terrible thing to have happened.”
“Thank you.” Mary’s eyes were red and she looked very tired, but she seemed to have herself well under control. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but the director’s secretary – Siobhan, is it? – she told me that you were so good, looking after Gemma while the ambulance was coming. And she said that she thought Gemma spoke to you.”
“She did, yes, and I’ve been thinking such a lot about that. Of course you’ll want to know what she said.”
“Please.”
“Let’s have some tea, shall we?”
As they entered the canteen, Mary looked around curiously. “I’ve never been here before. Gemma and I, well, we followed very different paths.”
Katie left Mary at a table and went to get the tea. She wondered how Mary would react when Katie told her that she had pretended to be Mary. But she had a right to know everything.
When Mary heard what she had to say, her eyes filled with tears. “She did say that? She asked for me? You’re certain?” “Not a doubt about it. She spoke quite distinctly. I wondered who Mary was, whether she was a friend, or even maybe a daughter. And when I let her think I was Mary, that soothed her and she was quiet again. I hope I did right?”
“Oh, thank you, thank you. It means everything that she wanted me there at the last and I’m so glad that she thought I was there.” She fumbled in her bag for a tissue and Katie went to get paper napkins for her. She came back and handed them to her.
Mary said, “By the time I got to the hospital, I couldn’t be sure that Gemma even knew I was there. We used to be close as children – there’s only fifteen months between us – and then... not so close, and it means so much –” she gulped and broke off. After a few moments she said, “And you see, I, well, sometimes it’s so hard to know what to do for the best.” Tears were rolling down her face. She dabbed at them.
Katie leaned over and squeezed her arm.
“I don’t know if I did the right thing,” Mary said. “I arranged for her to have Anointing of the Sick. The local priest came to the hospital.”
“Is that what’s also known as the last rites?” Katie asked.
“More or less, but it’s not called that any more. It’s quite a simple thing, really. The priest lays his hands on the sick person’s head and then he anoints their forehead and the palms of their hands with holy oil, and makes the sign of the cross. And now I’m thinking that perhaps I shouldn’t have done that. Because, you see, Gemma was a militant atheist.”
“Ah.” Katie was beginning to understand.
“We come from a big Catholic family. We’ve got an older sister who’s a nun, and a cousin who’s a priest. But Gemma lost her faith when she was at university.”
“And that caused a rift in the family?”
“Not that so much. It was the way she behaved, so intolerant – scornful even, as if we were idiots for not seeing things her way. She said some very hurtful things. My mother was terribly upset. But all the same, I don’t know if I had a right to over-ride Gemma’s wishes.”
Katie didn’t know what to say. Mary needed comfort, but she deserved something better than glib reassurances.
Mary was looking at her, waiting for an answer.
“OK, well, as I see it,” Katie said slowly, “there are two possibilities. Either Gemma knew what was going on or she didn’t. If she didn’t, then she didn’t know that you were going against her wishes, but you’ve got the comfort of knowing that she died – how would you put it?”
“In the grace of the church.”
“Yes, and if she did know – and they think hearing is the last sense to go, so maybe she did – then again there are two ways to think about that. She might have been angry, as you said. But even if she didn’t believe, perhaps it comforted her to have the priest there – to go back in a way to her childhood. And I think perhaps that’s the most likely thing, because she wanted you there, even though she knew that the two of you didn’t agree about religion.”
Mary had been listening intently. She said, “There’s another option. Perhaps she went back to her faith. Perhaps right at the very end she did believe. I’d like to think she was absolved of her sins. ‘Between the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I asked, mercy I found.’”
“It’s possible,” Katie conceded. After all, no one could know what might have been the last thoughts of the dying woman.
“So you think I did the right thing?”
Katie hesitated before she said, “You had to decide for her and you did your best. You don’t have anything to reproach yourself for – in my view.”
Katie reflected on what Mary had said about asking for mercy. She wondered if Gemma had felt in need of that at the end. She guessed that Mary would say that we all needed mercy and she would be right about that. We all make mistakes and we all have things to regret. But Gemma had certainly seemed very troubled by something. Should she tell Mary?
As if she’d read Katie’s thoughts, Mary asked, “Did she say anything else, apart from wanting me?”
“At one point she did get quite agitated. That was before she thought you were there. She was terribly exercised about something that had happened in the Congo. An outbreak of Sangha fever.” Katie explained what Gemma had said.
Mary sighed. “I’m afraid we weren’t in contact a huge amount in the last few years. I really regret that now. But I did make a point of ringing her every now and then, and of course I remember that trip, because we were so afraid that she might have caught that horrible disease herself. I know Professor Delaney was out there too. I think I’ll ask him about it.”